Tamahagane, Henry Mandell- MFA Boston

Tamahagane is a painting by Henry Mandell that I photographed while visiting the MFA Boston last week. I was drawn to the energy and color of the painting but once I found out that how it was created it was even more interesting to me. To create the painting Mandell researched Samurai culture, scanning and downloading texts from many sources including the MFA website. Using a CAD program, he manipulated those texts one letter at a time, pulling and stretching the words to create vivid, sweeping lines. His process confirms that there are many different ways to "read" information. Remarkably different from the original text, Mandell's version conveys the captivating movement and curvatures of Japanese swords in action- "Tamahagne" is the steel used to craft Japanese katana swords. For more info about the artist visit: http://henrymandell.com/index.php